The present invention relates to needle protective devices and particularly to a medicament container such as for example a glass vial that has fitted thereto a housing that covers a needle after use.
The assignee of the instant invention has under assignment the following U.S. patents all of which deal with vials having needle protection housings: U.S. Pat. No. 6,334,857; U.S. Pat. No. 6,524,281; and U.S. Pat. No. 6,551,287. The respective disclosures of the ""857, ""281 and ""287 patents are incorporated by reference to the instant disclosure. The vials disclosed in the above-noted patents are vials that are used with different injection applicators.
The instant invention is directed to providing a needle protection housing to a vial and slip syringe, glass or otherwise, that has a neck extending from a longitudinal body, and to which neck is mated a conventional needle having a luer end.
The glass vial or slip fit syringe for the instant invention has formed at its neck, at its proximal portion, an undercut in the form of a circumferential notch. A collar that is cup-shaped has as its bottom base a plurality of extensions that converge toward, but not touching, the center of the base so as to form a central aperture at the base. The extensions are separated by spaces so that when the collar, with the base first, is slidably fitted over the neck of the vial, the coplanar extensions would give way, when in contact with the neck of the vial, to effect a smooth sliding motion until the extensions reach the circumferential notch. At which time the extensions would return to their original shape to thereby firmly couple the collar to the base, with the converging ends of the extension mated to the circumferential notch of the neck of the vial.
The collar has a circular sleeve rising from the base. The inner wall of the upraised sleeve is threaded, and is configured to threadingly mate with a luer end of a conventional needle that fits to the neck of the vial. The internal thread of the sleeve may be configured as a one way thread so that once the luer of the needle is fully mated to the collar, it could no longer be removed therefrom. Also, once the collar is properly fitted to the neck of the vial, with the base mated to the circumferential notch, when the luer of a needle is fully mated to the collar, the extensions that made up the base would be pulled upwards by the luer end of the needle to firmly couple the base to the top undercut portion of the circumferential notch.
A needle protection housing is flexibly connected to the collar, possibly at a portion of the upper lip of the sleeve that extends toward the distal end of the neck of the vial. The housing has a longitudinal slot through which a needle that is mated to the neck of the vial passes when the housing is pivoted toward the needle for covering the needle. A lock mechanism, in the form of a hook, is integrated to the inside of the housing for grasping and retaining the needle after use, when the housing is pivoted to the alignment position to cover the needle. Given that the luer end is threaded to the collar, even were the collar forcibly removed from the neck or the vial breaks, the contaminated needle would continued to be retained inside the housing.